DIY Community for Kids

Have you heard of DIY.org? It’s an online community for kids and it’s smart. Children post their own DIY projects — like snow castles, wolf masks, knitted scarves, legos, rock collections, and forts — and share their work with fellow users. They can complete challenges to receive patches specific to a particular skill, like Camper, Paper Crafter, or Zoologist. The image above is just a few of the many, many patches they can earn. Could this be the boy scouts/girl scouts of the future?

Here, two blacksmith apprentices forge their own metal leaf. Pretty cool. Do your kids love to build things? Be creative? Would they like a site like this?

P.S. — The site seems to take privacy very seriously; users choose nicknames and illustrated animal avatars so their names and faces never have to be shown.

Hallelujah! Thank you for posting this. My husband and I were literally just talking about doing some goal oriented creative project with our kids that would not be scouts but be like that! I was thinking we would have to develop some elaborate system that would probably take us a year and would get procrastinated and never finished and now you have saved the day !

This is awesome! We started Girl Scouts this year and are already burnt out and a bit disillusioned about it (at least I can say that I am). Something like this would fill the patch-earning excitement void left by our departure from scouting next year.

Oh, this is such a great idea! I have a five year old super busy creator in my house who would just love to take part in this. She really responds to rewards (badges, certificates etc) so I can imagine she’d be pretty motivated to earn those patches!
Thanks for sharing :)

Oh so great, Sally. I just came back to this post after reading one of Erin Loechner’s posts on Design for Mini Kind on children and the entrepreneurial spirit. I cannot get enough of this DIY.org concept. It’s wonderful!

Welcome

My name is Gabrielle Blair. I'm a designer and mother of six. After 2 1/2 years in France, we just bought a home in Oakland, California. We call it The Treehouse. I post on where design and motherhood intersect.

Sponsors

Affiliate Links

The Design Mom site is an Amazon Affiliate, and a RewardStyle Affiliate. If you see links that include "rstyle" or "amazon", those are affiliate links.

Want to bypass the affiliate links? No problem. Simply type in the main url (like amazon.com or target.com) directly, instead of clicking through from Design Mom.

Would you link to know more about how this site is monetized? You got it. That topic is covered in the FAQs.

The Design Mom Book is available for pre-order! It's filled with tips and strategies for making your home beautiful, comfortable, functional and kid-friendly — a place where both you and your kids will thrive.